This page is devoted to holding Carbonite, Inc. accountable to the advertising standards its CEO, David Friend, announced on Saturday, March 3, 2012, when Carbonite was dropping its advertising on the Rush Limbaugh Show even after Rush had apologized to Sandra Fluke for certain comments made regarding Ms. Fluke.

A Statement from David Friend, CEO of Carbonite as of 6:45pm ET, March 3:

“No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.”

We do not seek to hold Carbonite accountable to standards of advertising we impose on Carbonite.

Rather, we will seek to hold Carbonite accountable to its own announced standards of not advertising on programs or in venues (including websites) which have engaged in personal attacks or uncivilized discourse.

This is a sunshine project, not a boycott. Whether a consumer chooses to use Carbonite or a publisher accepts advertising from Carbonite is not a concern of this project. Rather, we will document and chronicle whether Carbonite is living up to its own self-imposed standard of fostering only civil discourse.

Comments

You raise the bar to the highest standard by making this about reason, respect and rationality, thereby making candidates accountable for their actions and statements.

While I am new to your blog, I have read several of your articles, particularly regarding Elizabeth Warren. Your statement that she should be disqualified from running really struck a chord with me. In addition, she should be investigated for fraudulently representing herself on numerous employment, university and other relevant documents that clearly have given her advantages that she is not worthy of receiving.

It’s one thing to say as a candidate that you’ll do something if elected and then not do it. It’s quite another to completely misrepresent who and what you are for personal gain at the expense of others.

Call this “On a related note” last week Rush noted that two ex-advertisers, Proflowers and “Sherries Berries” still have their “rushproflowers” website, etc up, and are still honoring their “RUSH” promo code.

Sort of a ‘have their cake and eat it too’ position.

They were sponsors who did pull out in the boycott episode, and are NOT ‘back in the fold’.

FRAUD?: With only six-months’ cash remaining in the bank and losses of $88 million, Carbonite staged a ‘Hail-Mary’ IPO in August 2011.
The WSJ’s “Heard on the Street” detected a whiff of securities fraud — desperate for cash, Carbonite had slashed its offering in half, and then its venture capital founders had clandestinely purchased half of their own stock.
This smacks of despairing insiders seeking an escape hatch — opening the window to eventually dump their losing investment on the public.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204485304576643433842326332.html

RUSH: Limbaugh is better off without this dodgy company as a sponsor since it appears to be well on its way to becoming what F’dCompany.com used to call a “spectacular dot-com flameout.”

Thanks for your recent posts about Rush, Carbonite, et al. I’m not a regular listener of Rush’s but I did go to Carbonite because of their ads I heard during his air time. Is there an online backup outfit you or your readers might recommend in Carbonite’s stead? I glanced at your relevant posts and comments to see if there was an online backup company people were recommending but have found none.

Dear Mr. Jacobson, completely agreed! There is a double standard and, worse, the goal is to financially destroy conservative talk radio. Then,the mainstream media can spew its slanted “news” and there will be no voices to balance their one-sidedness.

If Carbonite did the same thing with Mr. Ed, or others on the left, then fine, but they didn’t, they took sides, and our side can’t sit idly by and allow the stakes to be raised.

My Carbonite subscription happened to expire about the time they dropped their ads on Rush’s show. After a couple of days I was bombarded with Carbonite pop ups trying to get me to resubscribe. I couldn’t logon without a Carbonite popup so I deleted their software from my computer ( on a PC go to CONTROL PANEL $B”* (B PROGRAMS AND FEATURES then scroll to CARBONITE and highlight, then click on UNINSTALL . This will safely remove Carbonite from your system).

Once the software was removed an eleven question survey appeared that would normally take 1 minute to complete. Questions 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11 include text boxes for detailed answers. See pdf attachment for a copy of the questionaire.

(Among other things, I asked that they publically renounce their political bias by dropping their ads on leftwing radio and TV programming, and for company executives to restrict gift giving and charitable donations to widows and orphans only.)

This is an opportunity for your Carbonite Accountability Project.

FYI – The Carbonite Accountability Project mirrors Alinksy Rule #10. The left used #13 and #4 against Rush.